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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22468045">artist's block</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkfromday/pseuds/Darkfromday'>Darkfromday</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kingdom Hearts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Kingdom Hearts III First Anniversary, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, because I haven't beaten any of Limit Cut yet, not Limit Cut Compliant, not re:mind compliant, specifically</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 08:40:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,561</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22468045</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkfromday/pseuds/Darkfromday</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>For a year, Naminé hasn't been able to draw.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kairi &amp; Naminé (Kingdom Hearts), Kairi &amp; Riku (Kingdom Hearts), Naminé &amp; Riku (Kingdom Hearts), Naminé &amp; Sora (Kingdom Hearts)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>artist's block</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hope, in three acts.</p><p>(Some spoilers for details of Re:Mind and the start of Limit Cut, despite what the tags say.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For a year, Naminé hasn't been able to draw.</p><p>It isn't for a lack of trying. She has carried her sketchbook around everywhere, felt it rub and chafe against her forearm consistently month after month; her favorite pencil dangles expectantly behind her ear. There are colored pencils and crayons littering the bottom of the checkered plaid bag that Isa and Lea bought for her, ready and waiting to serve her. She scrolls through the Gummiphone that Roxas gave her, lingering on photos of the one she wants to draw most. But inspiration doesn't strike her—not anywhere or at any time.</p><p>It's been this way since Sora disappeared.</p><p>Xion calls it <em>art block</em>. As a collector of seashells, she says she's had times since the battle against Master Xehanort where she doesn't go to the beach at all, because she's too sad to leave her bed, or because she just can't think of what she'd like to make with any shells she <em>did</em> collect. She's also said that being around any of her friends helps the feeling go away over time, but it's still the most terrifying thing Naminé has heard since she woke up in her new body.</p><p>All she is is her art, you see. She doesn't know what to do without it.</p><p>The drawings are also a link to Sora. When he first vanished from the islands, she had run to Radiant Garden and bought all the paper and pencils she could afford with what little munny she had, and sat up for hours and hours drawing the boy who had saved her life years before. Most of it ended up crumpled up, torn up, or snapped in half before the week was out, because it didn't show her anything at all. In her messy, dull sketches there was no sign of her friend—no sign that he was still alive.</p><p>Soon, she stopped being able to draw anything at all.</p><p>She denied it at first, but now she knows—so long as Sora remains missing, so too will her spark. And she must get it back, or none of them may ever get <em>him</em> back.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Naminé falls into a routine.</p><p>She lives in Twilight Town, but spends very little of her time there beyond sleeping and waking. Every morning she gets up, dresses in something flowy and colorful, and hitches a ride on the nearest gummi ship to the Destiny Islands. It doesn't take long from there to sail from the islands where the Keyblade wielders gather to play to the larger isles where most of the citizens live. From there, she sneaks into Sora's old house and sits in his room, trying to trace him from the place he had lived for fourteen years.</p><p>When that doesn't bring her any inspiration, she returns to the other island and calls Ventus' Gummiphone to get an update on whether he, Aqua and Terra have found any signs of their friend in the Realm of Darkness.</p><p>When Ven tells her yet again that there is no sign of Sora yet, she thanks him politely and makes sure to hang up before screaming into the walls of the quiet shack she's crouched in.</p><p>And once the noise has died down, she sheepishly emerges from the shack and walks across the bridge to Riku's favorite island, where she will find him and Kairi cuddling for comfort on the wide palm tree.</p><p>The sight always inspires sympathy. Kairi and Riku have always been close, but it would be illogical not to acknowledge that Sora has been the bridge connecting them for a long time. The three of them together are a force of nature, and any sign of trouble coming for one member reliably inspires angry retribution from the other two. Now Sora has been cut away from them—so in desperation, in grief, the remaining two friends cling to each other.</p><p>"Hi," Naminé always says when she arrives, and once she has announced herself she is invited to join the quiet mourning party.</p><p>The past year has taught her that Riku's embrace is cool and Kairi's is very, very warm. She has sat on either side of them before, but sometimes they will sandwich her in, taking each of her hands and letting her pencils and sketchbooks tumble to the sand below. Sometimes Kairi strokes her hand, or Riku shares memories of the three of them as children from the island—the memories that Naminé had stolen and altered not so long ago. Inevitably one of them will ask her how the search is going, if anything new has come up, if she has been able to draw something that might shed a light on where Sora might be. Naminé responds with negatives every single day, but neither of them seem to hold it against her. In fact, Riku and Kairi insist that she's not to blame, that nothing is riding only on her, and that she's just part of a much greater effort that <em>will</em> find their friend someday.</p><p>That's actually the only time she feels safe succumbing to tears.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The day that things change starts the same.</p><p>Mostly.</p><p>Naminé gets up, makes her bed, and hurries so she might catch the train to Yen Sid's tower. On the way, a boy she's never met offers her some sea-salt ice cream; she thinks of her friends and accepts it with a rare smile. When Ienzo drops her off on the Destiny Islands, a strange pull she's never felt before sends her towards the Secret Place Kairi showed her once, rather than to the bigger islands and back. When she makes it to the end of the stone path, Riku and Kairi are standing next to the door and waiting for her.</p><p>"There's always been something weird about this door," Riku says. "And even now that we know it leads to the Realm of Darkness, it's never stopped feeling mysterious. Like we haven't quite found all its secrets."</p><p>"It's always been a portal to the darkness?" Naminé asks, and tries not to sound nervous.</p><p>Kairi nods. "But now it feels like more. We thought... maybe touching it would help you."</p><p>There's no guarantee that Sora is in a place of Dark or Light or even the nothingness Naminé remembers from being a Nobody. But they still have <em>no</em> leads a year on, and no matter what anyone says she still feels a little responsible. She is supposed to be an all-powerful witch; she is supposed to have a connection to Sora that defies science and magic alike. More than that, they are friends.</p><p>If this will help... if this <em>might</em> help...</p><p>Naminé pulls her sketchbook out of her bag and dusts it off before striding forward. She keeps her shoulders straight, trying to project confidence she doesn't feel, and is buoyed by her friend's encouraging smiles as she passes them. Power radiates from the door the closer she gets, causing the pencil on her ear to hum and vibrate; she breathes in slowly so she won't shy away. With one side glance toward the paopu fruits Sora and Kairi once drew on the wall, Naminé reaches out and splays her left hand out wide where the handle should be on the smooth, featureless wood.</p><p>For seven painful seconds, she feels nothing.</p><p>Then, suddenly—</p><p><em>Light</em>.</p><p>An explosion of images flash across her mind. A paved road with tall buildings, so tall they poke and prod at the sky; flickering orange and blue streetlamps, illuminating a wiry running figure; the stink of darkness, a swarm of Shadows, and the responding smell of ozone preceding a bolt of lightning; cloaked figures stepping out of portals; and through it all, a blur of red and black and the flash of a key-shaped blade.</p><p>
  <em>"Naminé!"</em>
</p><p>"Naminé, wake up!"</p><p>She gasps, and her blue eyes fly open.</p><p>Kairi and Riku are on either side of her, looking anxious. Both of them have one arm wrapped around each of hers, like they had had to stop her from passing through the door. Considering the fact that the door now has a glowing blue and orange outline around the edges, that is perhaps not so far-fetched as she initially thought.</p><p>"Are you okay?"</p><p>"What happened? Are you hurt?"</p><p>"I saw..." she tries to say, then has to stop to take another deep breath. The things she saw robbed a lot of her air. "I, I saw..."</p><p>"What did you see?" they say together.</p><p>Naminé starts to tell them—but there is a warmth in her fingers, a spark that has long been missing. It's the work of a moment to free herself from their well-meaning arms and flip open her sketchbook, scribbling and sketching faster than she ever has—for she is finally able to <em>see,</em> to <em>draw</em>, for the first time in months and months! At last, she has a lead!</p><p>She traces and re-traces and even dumps her bag upside down, scrabbling for crayons to color everything appropriate. There's a good bit of time spent erasing and re-drawing details that aren't as sharp as they should be. Her friends both recognize the gravity of the moment, and let her finish.</p><p>When she does, she holds up the picture the door showed her proudly, with shining eyes.</p><p>In a hushed voice, she says, "I know where Sora is."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <strike>sorry for any errors, I literally wrote this in two hours</strike>
</p><p> </p><p>  <strike>soooo anybody have any tips for beating Limit Cut's Data Org on Critical Mode</strike></p><p> </p><p>Thanks so much for reading, and happy first anniversary to KH3!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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